Harve

yes

I'm now out of travel quarantine so will no doubt be watching less live feed (clips) from now on, but my week 2 rankings: 1. Tiffany (1-1) 2. Claire (4-2) 3. Kyland (3-10) 4. Christian (7-4) 5. Xavier (3-5) 6. Sarah Beth (11-6) 7. Derek X (13-7) 8. Azah (5-8) 9. Whitney (6-9) 10. Alyssa (9-10) 11. Hannah (15-11) 12. Britini (14-12) 13. Brent (2-13) 14. Derek F (8-14) 15. Frenchie (16-15) Vaguely spoilery below: The four who have been slowest to get off the Frenchie train, who is the most obvious lost cause, are at the bottom there. Brent I put second last week I think due to his deft turnaround of Frenchie targeting him, but really that probably only occurred because Frenchie is extremely emotional and easy to manipulate. It could be fun to watch Brent realise that the Slaughterhouse doesn't exist anymore if/when one of his former allies nominates him next, but equally it would be funny for the Slaughterhouse suddenly to be a thing again should he or Whitney win HOH. Tiffany has been playing admirably in that she has worked hard to flip the structure of the house. While it makes her a clear #1 in my eyes, it certainly doesn't allow her to lay low, so in case she does get targeted, her closest but less prominent allies who share lots of the information that she does, such as Claire - or maybe even Tiffany's protégé, Derek X, despite him not knowing the game at the beginning - are in an equally good position to keep her work going to the end.

We all know about and love/hate the long song bloc but do we know about long album bloc x Fun fact: the most recent album from one of the artists in this final is longer than the length of this entire BJSC final, at over 3 hours long. I'll leave someone inquisitive to figure out who this is as that allows me to say that I'm also giving 18 to this artist [again] as both that album and the track entered here are anthems. (hopefully Iz hasn't noted this in his descriptions that I maybe skimmed past as otherwise I've given the game away as to who my 18 is)

I sent the (and came 2nd!) in like 2014 x 12 Q 10 Q 8 Q 7 Q 6 Q 5 Q 4 Q 3 Q 2 4 - Tartford - Milk Inc. - La Vache 1 Q Yay @ my qualification and yay @ almost all of my votes qualifying too!

I'm pretending that it's 2016 again by voting very last minute but those votes are nonetheless coming x

I can confirm that but it's been spectacularly messy. People are already making comparisons between Frenchie's HOH breakdown to Devin's. Lots of feed highlights here btw. My gameplay rankings: 1. Tiffany 2. Brent 3. Xavier 4. Claire 5. Azah 6. Whitney 7. Christian 8. Derek F 9. Alyssa 10. Kyland 11. Travis 12. Sarah Beth 13. Derek X 14. Britini 15. Hannah 16. Frenchie I'm also loving the cast!

No quarantine only if your vaccinations were administered in the UK which is utterly nonsensical. We still have to quarantine coming to England from France and Germany if our vaccines were given there because the English government don't consider us to be vaccinated despite using the exact same vaccines used in England. Ridiculous and petty.

That might just be the % of postal votes requested that have been returned which is perfectly normal.

Duh I can't remember if it was Claustro or Chemz that got vetoed in January but 'previous candidates need not apply' is not in force here x

Veto my 10 minute sprawling, euphoric electronic masterpiece at ur peril because what I will replace it with the pop hoes will hate even more x

Gonna try to send a track that sounds unique/interesting but is nonetheless cheap (= from a well-known artist) and if that gets vetoed then I've got other stuff too.

@1408852539202752514 This tweet is killing me :cheeseblock:

@1408032267969118214 Scotland with a rather large natural decrease in population. This works out at -0.32% per year, which is a level that only Eastern Europe + Germany experience, and is likely to be compounded by net migration reversing at just the wrong moment due to UK government decisions. Extremely harmful. I think this is a part of a broader pattern where Britain and Western Europe diverge markedly - but you can look at Britain and France in particular as they are two countries who have had remarkably similar populations and economies for a while now - due to a Brexit + covid shock in much the same way Poland and Ukraine followed very different paths after the fall of the iron curtain at the end of the 80s. Ukraine at the time had an identical GDP per capita and a population 35% bigger but is now five times poorer than Poland, and its population will soon fall below Poland's too.

Ppl didn't vote because they wanted to simulate this week's French regional and departmental elections' low turnout x

I'm not sure this is important when the Tories have had their biggest Northern successes in over 30 years under the leadership of someone who is the complete opposite of that. Angela Rayner has a story to tell and at the very least that can at least feed into a wider vision and narrative that is absent under Starmer, but I don't think it's necessary for every successful politician to have those attributes.

A progressive alliance isn't really necessary and is just tinkering around the edges of the First Past the Post system that's inherently flawed. The Chesham election - and indeed the Hartlepool one - shows that when it is obvious who the leading anti-Tory contender is, the other parties are going to be squeezed anyway. Voters aren't stupid. And there is no guarantee that the 6% of Chesham or 5% of Hartlepool who voted for a non-Tory progressive would actually be willing to lend their vote for the contender - there's a reason why they stuck with voting for a no-hoper in the first place! It's far more likely that if there was only a Lib Dem on the ballot paper, or only a Labour candidate, then the minority who aren't willing to countenance voting for the contender would just stay at home. Voters are also idiosyncratic and not every Lib Dem or Green voter would choose a different progressive to their preferred one over a Tory MP! You only have to look at Scottish council election preference rankings under STV to see that. Yes, the majority behave as you would expect, but these are the people who already tactically vote without a progressive alliance having been put in place.

Thanks for rooting through all the info. I count myself incredibly lucky! Here's to 12th place in the final then.

Oof! Since duel 6 was so close and that Mulgracia made a comeback with non-participants, what would have happened if the final duel were Skall vs Mulgracia instead? I guess I wouldn't have made it?

In 1990, a Tory MP was literally murdered by the IRA and in the resulting by-election, voters replaced him with a Lib Dem. Quite a callous electorate.

Ok the Tories actually got demolished lmao

@1405683970264776708 It would seem that I was too pessimistic. Also while I love to see Tories losing, when you lose to a campaign that's added onto the baseline ~35% progressive core vote with anti-HS2, anti-housebuilding and other NIMBY-adjacent messages, it doesn't exactly fill you with confidence. (also whatever the result, this will get 20% of the coverage that Hartlepool got - despite more important elections happening at the same time for the latter - because England just love doing a story about Labour woes to death)

The opposition parties managing to deny the Tories an outright majority in Chesham tonight, which has never happened in this constituency, even at their nadir in the early 00s, would still be a pretty encouraging result given the favourable national environment for the government. I think expectations management has gone a bit awry here where, say, 50% Tory/35% Lib Dem/8% Green/7% Labour + others would be seen as a disappointment and an anti-climax.

When more people approve of the government's performance than disapprove, which historically is exceptional, then I don't think that the national environment allows for a Lib Dem win, and if local issues are at play then a narrow loss I don't think means much for everyone else either.

Are yous vaccinating adolescents yet? We can vaccinate ages 12 and over now. It seems that it should be a particular priority for Britain as in my sister's school at least, she spends all day in unventilated classrooms with nobody wearing a mask (???), and as much as other restrictions make me rage, that practice seems a bit baffling.

The thing that is now most unsatisfying is the feeling of being wrong in so many different ways.